Kale chips are popping up everywhere these days. They’re another one of those healthy interpretations of conventional junkfood thingies. I am not complaining. I love them! They are a crunchy, cheesy and satisfying snack. As an added bonus, they are extremely nutritious. The two main ingredients are kale and either cashews or sunflower seeds. It’s literally a salad, in chip form! If I could turn all food into chips, I would. Chips rock.

Luckily for me, my extended family has recently taken a liking to them as well. As such, I thought it was high time I show everyone how to make these goodies at home. Who wants to pay $7.00 for a tiny bag of kale crisps, when you could make 10 times that amount for the same price? I’ve been promising my mother-in-law this tutorial forever, so here you go Anne! Enjoy!

DIY Kale Chips

First of all you’ll need a coating for your chips. I like using either cashews or tahini as a base. Here is a basic recipe for both:

Cheesy Cashew Base

1 C cashews

1 red pepper

Juice of 1 lemon

2 T nutritional yeast

1 tsp salt

fresh ground pepper to taste

Tahini Base

1/2 C tahini

juice from 1-2 lemons

1 clove garlic

2 Tbsp tamari or Braggs

pepper to taste

water to thin (about 1/4 C)

Change it up by adding different flavour combo’s to the above recipes, like curry powder, jalapeno, fresh herbs, tomato, etc…

Once you’ve got your base, you’re ready to go.

Wash and de-stem about 2 bunches of kale. I like green curly kale the best. Rip your kale into chip-sized pieces.

Coat your kale in your dressing- the dressing should be thick. Be sure to massage the dressing onto your kale so that each leaf is smothered. You want them to be saucy! I made a cheesy cashew base this time:

Blending away in the best invention of all time- VITAMIX!

Spread your kale chips onto a dehydrator tray, and dehydrate at 115 for as long as it takes to get the chips crispy (usually about 8-12 hours). If you don’t have a dehydrator, you’ll need to make friends with a foodie-geek like me and ask them nicely to invite you over for a dehydrator party (they will say yes, because that is a foodie-geeks dream come true). Alternatively, you could try to dry the chips in an oven. I have heard it is possible to do this by baking/drying the chips on the lowest temperature possible. Good luck- it will be worth a risk if it works out.